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Introduction to Linux - A Hands on Guide

This guide was created as an overview of the Linux Operating System, geared toward new users as an exploration tour and getting started guide, with exercises at the end of each chapter.
For more advanced trainees it can be a desktop reference, and a collection of the base knowledge needed to proceed with system and network administration. This book contains many real life examples derived from the author's experience as a Linux system and network administrator, trainer and consultant. They hope these examples will help you to get a better understanding of the Linux system and that you feel encouraged to try out things on your own.

I don't understand what is the "formatting" you're speaking of. Can you perhaps show us the output looking like you don't want it to, and then to compare, also show us the same output, only formatted like you DO want it to look?

Using the code tags as you have, should preserve any whitespace you insert. So, show us what exactly you want in the output, compared to what you don't want.

location="IS HOME"; sep="--"
for i in "THE COW" "THE DOG" "THE BOAT" "THE AARDVARK"; do
printf "%-14s %s %s\n" "$i" "$sep" "$location"
done

So, the printf statement expects 3 arguments:%-14s and %s and %s followed by the newline \n.

The formatting results in the following:
%-14s = makes a padded string 14 chars long, left justified.
%s = makes a string exactly as is given to printf.

Output:

Code:

root@reactor: for i in "THE COW" "THE DOG" "THE BOAT" "THE AARDVARK"; do printf "%-14s %s %s\n" "$i" "$sep" "$location"; done
THE COW -- IS HOME
THE DOG -- IS HOME
THE BOAT -- IS HOME
THE AARDVARK -- IS HOME
root@reactor:

You can play around with the formatting codes to shift the padding left or right (left or right justify). And you should be able to easily enough figure out at least one way to move the "IS HOME" further to the right if you want.
There are man pages for printf, but they don't go into great detail about all the formatting codes you can possibly use. Search for a good online resource for this if you need more.